


The Water's Fine

by ImpishFics



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Almost Drowning, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Anal Sex, Interspecies Sex, Language Barrier, M/M, Mermaid! Hwang Hyunjin, Mermaids, Plot With Porn, Porn With Plot, Ritual Sex, Smut, Sort Of, Strangers to Lovers, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, Weird Biology, as one party is a mermaid, atypical mermaid, but its the 30's so they are called aquatic biologists, flirting through notes about a plant, marine biologist Lee Minho, this takes place in 1939
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:27:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24987541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImpishFics/pseuds/ImpishFics
Summary: He was back again. The man. Hyunjin watched from behind a rock as the man continued as he had done the two previous times Hyunjin had seen him. Sitting on a rock, under the blazing hot sun with his parchments, and a writing tool, some sort of carving stone that he used on the parchment. Hyunjin knew all about parchment, something utterly human, with almost no use underwater. It fascinated him, like so many human things. The man was no less fascinating.OrMinho's an aquatic biologist trying to draw a plant, and Hyunjin thinks he could use a little help... In more ways than one.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 23
Kudos: 309
Collections: ImpishHaechan's Donation Request Fulfillments





	The Water's Fine

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! [Consider Checking Out This BLM Info](https://moreblminfo.carrd.co)
> 
> This is another request that I completed with proof of a donation to certain orgs and bail funds, you can find out more [here](https://twitter.com/translixie/status/1267220505888784384)
> 
> This one was done for a VERY generous prompter who wished to remain anonymous. They requested Hyunho mermaid tentacle sex. 
> 
> This takes place in 1939 before underwater cameras were common practice so new species were drawn by illustrative biologists!  
> Huge enormous thank you to [Milan](https://twitter.com/seungshibari), [Eli](https://twitter.com/BigBoyEels), and [Noah](https://twitter.com/NoahBG97) for helping me so much with editing this fic, without them there was no way I could have finished this.

_ August, 1939 _

_ Eastern Coast _

He was back again. The man. Hyunjin watched from behind a rock as the man continued as he had done the two previous times Hyunjin had seen him. Sitting on a rock, under the blazing hot sun with his parchments, and a writing tool, some sort of carving stone that he used on the parchment. Hyunjin knew all about parchment, something utterly human, with almost no use underwater. It fascinated him, like so many human things. The man was no less fascinating.

In the sun, his hair was black, squid ink against white clouds from where Hyunjin peered up at him. His skin was soft, with a sharp jaw - or at least it looked soft. Hyunjin wanted desperately to touch it.  _ His _ skin couldn’t be very soft, it was harder, firmer, than most creatures, scales hidden in flesh. Hyunjin was made to survive and move efficiently through the water, to hunt. He wonders what the man was made for. He didn’t look like he was made for hunting, no sharp nails, soft skin, his teeth were dull and blunt where they pressed into his plump lower lip. Hyunjin’s people told stories of the men at festivals and feasts. Elders stepped forward with young ones in tow to act out stories of their history, stories to scare the babes from curiosity, fearsome hunters, evil tools, killing without reason. But this human didn’t look like a hunter, and his tools looked harmless, and in a fight Hyunjin liked his odds.

His legs were so different from Hyunjin’s own. He could see them today. Before, he had been covered, tunics and pants strapped in, but today, he wore less. He marked the page before returning to the surf. Hyunjin liked this much more, when the man would look at the plants under water, kicking his little feet quickly to stay against the pull of air to the surface or the current farther into the depths. There he would observe the plants before surfacing to sketch something on the rock. It was fascinating. Underwater, he looked completely different, yet very much the same. He couldn’t see as well as Hyunjin was able to, he could tell in the way the man squinted and had to get up close to the seaweed. Underwater, his skin glowed, his legs were so pale and so soft. Hyunjin envied every plant that brushed against them, but watched silently from the cover of the rocks, resting in the shadow they provided.

The man surfaced and heaved deep gasping breaths before pulling himself up onto the boulder with his equipment. He had a tent, a mile or so up the shore. Hyunjin had seen him there with the other men and more equipment, but the man came here alone. He wiped his hands on fabric before picking up his tool and parchment and beginning to write? Or sketch? Hyunjin wanted to know what he was doing. 

When the man sat back on his legs and cocked his head, Hyunjin readied himself. The man huffed and pushed the parchment away before diving into the surf again, and this time, instead of following him, Hyunjin crept closer to the rock, hoisting himself up on his arms and partially out of the water to look at what the man did.

He pulled himself further out of the water and counted to thirty before he felt his lungs stutter full, and let the air push in and out until it was steady. The rock bled heat like a dying creature, baked his skin but he knew it wouldn't be deadly, so he ignored it. Hyunjin crawled forward to see what the man was doing.

He was drawing it, the plant, he was sketching it plainly onto the page with his tools. Hyunjin's fingers itched to take the parchment, to take the tools, to swim home where he could study them, and try to understand them. But at home, the marks would bleed into obscurity and to take from the human might alert him to his presence, or even worse, make him stop. Hyunjin didn't want him to stop, he wanted to watch a little longer. Off to the side of the drawing, there was writing, slanted, and far loopier than Hyunjin was used to, but clearly writing. Hyunjin didn't speak the human language, but he had learned to decipher certain things. There was an elder who knew more, she would know surely what all of it said but Hyunjin tried. With an arrow pointing at a leaf, Hyunjin made out,

" _ lighter than body" _

He squinted at that, he was pretty sure he was right but he didn't quite know what to make of that. The drawing was good, but Hyunjin knew why the man was so frustrated. The drawing was lovely and beautiful, but it wasn't  _ right; it _ missed key features of the seaweed, the way it all worked together. The man captured elements accurately, they were correct in some ways but the bend of the leaves was wrong, the stem wasn't curving right. And it was all too still, never in his life had Hyunjin seen one not interacting with its environment. Hyunjin heard the man surface for air, and before he could catch his breath and open his eyes, Hyunjin slipped back into the sea and slunk into the shadows.

The man heaved himself up again, he was shivering. The water was warm to Hyunjin, the sun-scorched rock had made his skin feel burned at the first touch, how curious that this man was so cold. He reached for his fabric and dried his hands before he wrapped the fabric around himself like a shawl. Then, quickly, he reached for his tools and scrawled some more. Hyunjin wondered if his additions were any better, or if he was still so misguided. The tide was coming in, the man slipped back into his garments and packed up his tools. Hyunjin took one last look at the human and went home. He would come back in the morning.

The human’s drawings weren’t better. He scrapped some, starting from nothing, the same plant, one that Hyunjin had known his whole life but the human kept distorting it, messing up key elements and he  _ knew _ . Hyunjin knew the human knew in the way he scoffed and snorted at his own work, trying and trying again to capture something new about the weed, but missing something each time. It was amazing to Hyunjin, it was like the human knew something was wrong but didn’t know what. He had never seen a human try so hard to understand the sea, he had never seen a human so helpless. 

Hyunjin looked at the plant. It wasn’t the most healthy variety, they weren't meant to grow so close to shore, or at least without cover. Usually they grew deeper, in colder areas surrounded by tall kelp that acted as cover. When he was younger, and he hid from his friends and siblings during games, he had hidden alongside the weed under the shelter of the kelp gardens. All the direct sunlight was drying it out and its leaves were going white in uneven spots. He wondered if the human even realized. Did the human think it could help? It couldn’t. The plant didn’t belong there and it wouldn’t last long. 

The human dived back into the sea. Today it had another tool, almost like a hollow reed to suck air while its face was in the water. Each time, it stayed out longer. Hyunjin almost admired it, the bullheaded determination to understand. Hyunjin crept up onto the rock, he touched the fabric that the human liked so much and let it dry out his hand. He hated it, how it made his skin feel less elastic, even tighter, but he ignored the feeling and picked up the writing tool. He held it awkwardly but practiced on the back of an abandoned drawing trying to draw a straight line. It wasn’t very good. It was different from the scribe tools he was familiar with, but it was familiar enough. 

Hyunjin didn’t need to close his eyes and picture the plant, he didn’t need to look at the human’s' attempts, he knew the thing, he knew the way it grew. He started to draw, in broad sweeps, capturing its motion, the way the top half completely conformed to the current, the arch of the leaves towards and away from the sun. It wasn’t perfect, it didn’t have the precise detail of the man’s drawing, no one would confuse it for anything besides marks on a page, but it was more true. It captured more of the thing than the man had. Hyunjin nodded and slipped back into the surf to wait for the man to return.

Then Hyunjin remembered, and rushed back up to the rock, not stopping to let his lungs adjust or wipe off his hands, he scrawled quick with damp fingers, and shaky handwriting,

_ “More move” _

He dove back into the water, back to his hiding spot to wait for the human. The human returned and dried his hands with a single minded determination that Hyunjin had only ever seen in humans. He added more to his own drawing before he saw Hyunjin’s sketch. The man gasped and looked around, he clearly didn’t see Hyunjin because he looked back at the drawing. He said something in his own language, it didn’t seem like a curse, and it certainly wasn’t a greeting. Hyunjin didn’t speak to himself, it only alerted potential predators, he spoke rarely. Instead he spoke through gestures and touch, and occasional spoken word in the most intimate moments or the most joyous gatherings. It was something precious, but not to humans, they gave it away freely. Once more Hyunjin found himself enthralled. 

The man studied Hyunjin's drawing carefully, soaking it in with his big brown eyes. His eyes were so different, so light, when the sun hit them they shined with warmth, Hyunjin had never seen anyone with eyes so warm, so golden. His eyes rested in white, it was fascinating, he had never been so close to a human before to see that, the white, and his eyes  _ change _ . As he emerged from the water the human’s pupils shrunk in on itself. Hyunjin wondered if all humans did that, changed their eyes size, or if his human was special. Hyunjin wondered how special his human was, if he could see why it was more true. The human looked around again, but he didn't see Hyunjin. 

The human marked the drawing, and returned to his own, before he started anew. Hyunjin crept closer, slightly less hidden,but he couldn’t help it. If the man was starting over, clearly he was seeing  _ something, _ had realized the error in his own sketch. The man dove back into the water and Hyunjin crept up onto the boulder. He dried his hand, the cloth was soft on his firmer flesh, but it was rough on the parchment-thin webbing between his fingers. He picked up the tool, too small for his own long sharp fingers but workable, and observed what the human had done. 

It was better, it captured more of the sway, the inherent give of the plant, the way it completely snapped to the will of the current. It was more alive. But still, certain elements were lost, something was lacking, the spots on the plant from the unforgiving beat of the sun weren't random enough, it wasn’t sick enough. The roots were missing, the human only saw the top half of the plant, so much of it was missing, the way it worked with every other part of the garden. There at the top of the page, was more writing, neater with a question mark. 

_ “Better?”  _

It was for Hyunjin. Hyunjin smiled, he had never heard of a human asking a question. Hyunjin clutched the tool tightly, until his claws dug into the material and he had to loosen his grip, only just slightly, and began to sketch everything that was missing. He started with the roots, stringy and weak on their own, but interlocking with each other in restless clumps, casual touches and stronger ones for others, embraces. He sighed. He needed to draw another plant, and then hundreds more to show the way they breathed together but he thought it might muddy up the human’s understanding. He seemed intent on drawing just this one. He returned to the leaves, he added his own with the sun spots the way that they happened, random and splotchy, uneven growth, as so much of rot is. He drew a line from the spots, the ones Hyunjin had drawn, to the mans’ and wrote, as neatly as he could, 

_ “Not good” _

To the man’s earlier message he responded. 

_ “Much better. More alive.” _

Hyunjin released the tool, it had marks and lines from Hyunjin’s grip, he hoped the human would still be able to use it, it would be very rude if Hyunjin broke his scribe. Hyunjin pulled another lungful of air in before he sunk back into the sea.

Hyunjin liked land so much more than many of his peers. He was used to defending it, arguing and insisting that land was nice to justify his behavior. His secret strolls in beach grass, exploring the coves and abandoned bays, he had to be so vocally defensive that he tried not to acknowledge the discomfort. But it was there. It demanded to be acknowledged, he could breathe air and crawl onto the land, he could hoist himself on boulders and pet the sweet waterfowl that nested on the shore, but it would never feel good. His body longed for the ocean, for the crash of the waves and the cool temperatures below. Slipping into the water was a sigh, a relaxing, his body no longer felt so heavy, his eyes no longer so dry, his skin no longer so tight. 

Hyunjin surfaced a bit, so just his eyes and hair were above water, his blond white hair floated on the water around him like a lily pad bobbing in the ripples of a pond. The Atlantic was a big pond. The human came back, he was so good at that, finding his way back.

From his new vantage point, Hyunjin could watch the way the human heaved himself onto the rock. He hadn’t been able to see it from his previous hideout, but here, while he was more exposed he could also see more. He could see the way the human planted his hands first and steadied his foot against the rock before he shifted his weight forward and struggled up. His limbs were so much shorter than Hyunjin’s own, but they rippled differently, so soft. His thighs gleamed in the sun from the water, and his skin was red from the salt and abrasion where they rubbed together, but the muscles were strong, more than strong enough to pull his body from the water and onto the boulder. He swung one leg onto the top at a time, before approaching the drawings excitedly. 

He gasped, a quick inhalation that made Hyunjin twitch with glee in the water, a smile curving on his face as he watched the man excitedly lean forward to study Hyunjin’s contribution on the parchment. Hyunjin swam closer, wanting to see in greater detail the man’s eyes as he took it in, the roots, his notes, the new information. Hyunjin was delighted to watch the man’s eyes grow in size. The human leaned forward, over the drawing and Hyunjin had to creep even closer in order to not lose access to half his face. The man picked up his tool and gasped again, small delicate fingers tracing over the marks from Hyunjin’s grip. Guilt clawed at Hyunjin’s throat, but the human didn’t look angry. The human was confused, but his eyes also spoke of wonder, one that Hyunjin’s eyes reflected, even if his eyes looked so different from the humans. 

Just then, as the human was still studying his tool, the wind blew and a gale from a different direction flung the drawing along with all the other papers into the air. The human yelped and reached for it, but it had traveled too far, it was going to fall in the water. Hyunjin didn’t think, he moved with haste and used a powerful kick from the fins on his feet to propel himself out of the water and into the air. Hyunjin reached his arm forward until one ultra sharp nail pierced the corner of the parchment with the drawing, like he might pierce dinner, and held it above his head, above the water, so their work wouldn’t be soaked. All he was thinking in that moment was that he couldn’t let all of the human’s work go to waste, not when he was just beginning to understand. 

The human screamed in shock and covered its mouth with the same delicate small hands. What had Hyunjin done? He stared at the paper still hanging from his claw and came closer slowly. He pulled himself up onto the rock, just his arms and face, until he could put the drawing down safely and fall back into the water. 

What had Hyunjin done? 

The other parchments had blown in the wind too. Hyunjin pushed off the boulder and darted through the water collecting them. They were all soaked, but maybe the human still needed them. When he sprung onto the rock to put them down the human wasn’t huddled away from him. It was an inch away, its nose almost touching Hyunjin’s and suddenly two small warm hands settled on his own and soft pink lips were opening to speak. Hyunjin didn’t know what the human could possibly be saying, but his arms strained with the effort of holding himself up, and the human’s hand was so warm and soft on his, that Hyunjin said one of the only human phrases he knew. 

“Hello, I am Hyunjin.” Hyunjin’s voice rumbled with disuse, but the human smiled, soft and beautiful. It seemed every part of this human was soft and lovely.

“Hello, Hyunjin, I am Minho.” 

Minho. Fascinating. Minho sat back, and removed one hand from Hyunjin's, but the other still circled Hyunjin's wrist like the human was afraid he might leave, and picked up the drawing they had worked on together. His mouth opened and clearly said one other phrase Hyunjin knew, "Thank you."

========

Minho ate his hard boiled egg so fast he practically gargled it with his coffee. He waved to the other researchers before running to his supervisor's office. He took a deep breath before knocking, centered himself by reading and rereading the gold nameplate: Dr. Brian Kang - Head Aquatic Biologist. Minho's position as assistant aquatic biologist meant he had to report to his supervisor every morning and night, usually he would be working with his supervisor on research, but the shiny new submersible Atlantis held two passengers – the head aquatic biologist and then associate aquatic biologist – so there was no room for assistants. For most of the summer Minho had been stuck studying shore plant life and sketching seaweeds for informational brochures and textbooks. That morning, Minho had never been so grateful to be so unimportant. His supervisor was older, but not as old as any of his professors, and okayed Minho to keep working on his sketches with a face full of apology.

Minho hadn't told him about yesterday. He hadn't told anyone at the lab about yesterday. About Hyunjin.

Minho stuffed his pack with more pencils, ink, and papers, and a notebook for writing, and rode his bike the mile and a half down the coastline from the laboratory to his spot. Beyond Lacie's Cove and the cliff point that Minho knew the local teens snuck off to for secret rendezvous, there lay an overgrown trail full of loose shale and ticks that Minho had to pluck off every night. Minho parked his brown and tan bicycle at the top and chained it to a tree before he made his way down the uneven path. At the bottom, he reached the rocky beach. The past few days he had just worn his bathing suit at this point, but today, he didn't think much about swimming. He took off his loafers and socks and left them on a rock in the sun, then rolled up his herringbone pants to his knees to wade in the water towards the first boulder. From there, Minho hopped to a second and a third, gaining height each time before he could finally leap onto the rock where he did most of his work.

The rock he spent much of his time on was mostly flat, about three feet above the waterline, and just after the first sandbar before the ocean floor completely fell away. Minho laid out his papers and pencils and towel and looked around. The water was slightly choppier today, but the sky was clear above. The sun beat down relentlessly and Minho was glad to be wearing a shirt and hat today, even if it made sweat bead already at his nape. Minho crawled to the edge of the rock that fell away to the deeper water and scanned for white-blond hair and white-grey skin, but saw nothing.

"Hyunjin?" Minho called and felt ridiculous. Hyunjin might never appear again. Minho would have been sure that yesterday had been an elaborate dream if not for the drawing with the claw-shaped hole in the corner, and even still, it didn't feel real. Even if Hyunjin was real, no one like him had ever been documented. It might stand to reason that he didn't mean to come into contact with Minho yesterday, and that he might not make the same mistake again. That he might have gone far away, much too far away to hear Minho's call. Still Minho tried once more. "Hyunjin? It's Minho!"

A splash and a dull thud behind him had Minho turning around and coming face to face with pale skin and hair and big black eyes, close, too close for how little Minho had been able to hear. Minho gasped with shock, he tried to scramble back, and his stomach dropped out of him when his hand found nothing but air. Minho yelped as he went careening over the edge of the boulder, before he was caught by impossibly large and strong hands around his middle and safely hefted back onto the rock. Minho stared at Hyunjin's face in awe, and faintly he heard the sound of his hat splashing into the ocean. Hyunjin patted Minho’s sides twice, as if telling him to stay, before he dove back into the water.

Minho laughed to the empty rock, full of disbelief. A seagull squawked at him, and he laughed harder, unsure what to make of the last minute of his life. Hyunjin leaped out of the water and pulled himself onto the boulder in front of Minho, his damp panama hat in hand. Minho took it and cringed at the way the hat’s straw seeped salt water like an open wound. 

“Thank you Hyunjin, and hello.” Hyunjin beamed, a smile that showed off dozens of razor sharp teeth. 

“Hello, Minho.”

Hyunjin didn't seem to understand much spoken language, but he understood almost everything Minho wrote to him, and he replicated sounds with ease. It wasn't any accent Minho had heard, of course it wasn't, it wasn't any accent anyone had heard. Hyunjin seemed reluctant to speak, and Minho didn't want to make him. Instead, he sat closer, close enough to look over his shoulder as he wrote. He watched Hyunjin's hands. Hyunjin's hands were enormous, so much larger than Minho's own in not just width, but in length too, proportioned slightly differently than human hands with longer fingers than palms. Additionally, Hyunjin had long nails, far thicker and sharper than Minho's own, that made Hyunjin struggle greatly to hold the pencil steady without accidentally breaking it. Minho had brought extra in case.

Hyunjin looked back at Minho. His eyes were so different from humans, the whites of his eyes were less opaque, an almost silver-like fog where his all-black iris and pupil rested, one indistinguishable from the other. Hyunjin's eyes were black, but had a depth that Minho hadn't seen in any human eye he had studied in his anatomy courses. It was almost like a sixgill shark eye but with a more humanoid shape. Minho could stare at them all day and not understand them, but they were beautiful all the same. The same could be said for most of Hyunjin, a foreign amalgamation of the familiar. Something new and indescribable but breathtaking.

Hyunjin blinked in confusion and tapped an elegant finger on the paper, Minho flushed at being caught staring and looked at what Hyunjin had written. He had circled the pretty spotted leaves of the plant and written in shakey print,

" _ you know bad? Sun Bad." _

Minho looked at the plant, at the spots that he had previously thought of as particularly clever camouflage. Sun bad. Sun bad. No, Minho didn't know sun bad. He traced his fingers over the drawing, Hyunjin had redrawn the spot, white on the green leaves, and oh. The dotted pattern wasn't to blend in with the algae-covered rocky floor, it was sun bleaching, the sun was  _ harming  _ the plant. Minho looked up at Hyunjin, who smiled, and Minho wrote back.

_ "The sun hurts the plant?" _

Hyunjin wrote back. It took Hyunjin longer to write than Minho, it was like Minho could see him parsing through his memory trying to remember how to form each letter. Minho wondered what kind of genius would be required to learn to read and write without conversation, without the aural component for understanding inflection, without anyone to speak to.

" _ Yes, she needs the sun but this sun is too much" _

She. Hyunjin had given the plant a gender. Minho was full of questions. Did Hyunjin mean to gender the plant? In his culture, did they gender every living thing or was it merely a misunderstanding of human pronouns? What did he mean by  _ too much _ ? As far as Minho knew this was a rare plant found in the shallow waters of coastlines, documented by description only and undrawn. It was uncommon enough that Minho hadn't pulled it up or cut it down because it was so unlikely to see one still alive and be able to observe it in its natural environment. Was Hyunjin saying this wasn't where it was meant to be? Was Hyunjin saying there were more?

_ "Hyunjin, are there more? _ "

Hyunjin read it and looked at Minho, confused.

_ "yes" _

Minho's breath stuttered, there were  _ more _ , this could be a real discovery. If there were more, and this  _ wasn't  _ the ultra-rare aquatic plant everyone thought it was, that could lead to a real contribution to oceanic knowledge, a better understanding of the marine ecosystem. Minho's heart raced at the possibility.

_ "Can you show me?"  _ Hyunjin looked at Minho, and Minho looked back trying to convey with his face and eyes how much this would mean to him how much he wanted this. Hyunjin didn't have eyebrows like Minho's, they were like his hair, blond and silver and white, and none of those colors at the same time. They shimmered with something more, subtle on his face, but when Minho reached out to smooth them out with his thumb they were almost prickly, not at soft as human eyebrows. And then Minho realized he just practically tried to pet Hyunjin and snatched his hand back, embarrassed, and looked at the rock in shame.

A long sharp nail lightly tapped under Minho's chin twice prompting Minho to look up and then down at the paper.

_ "I show you, but first you learn." _

But first he had to learn. He looked up at Hyunjin, his face must have spoken of confusion so universal even Hyunjin understood it because he wrote again.

_ "There is no writing or talking in the ocean, she drinks sound. You must learn to be safe." _

"Oh!" Minho said out loud and nodded to Hyunjin. 

" _ I am ready to learn." _ Hyunjin smiled brightly. His teeth were so sharp and his gums were so red, the brightest color on his body. Hyunjin's body was incredible, humanoid but extended, long lines, thin, but clearly incredibly strong with corded muscle on every appendage. Hyunjin didn't have nipples, which shouldn't have surprised Minho as much as it did. They were already useless on human males anyway, but it still surprised him. His body was made of long lines that connected together, the wave of his torso flowed, aided by lines of definition down his stomach. Currents, only interrupted by slashes like deep cuts at the bottom of his ribs - that must’ve been gills. Minho tried not to think about the fact that Hyunjin had gills. That Hyunjin was more like axolotls in terms of respiratory functions than he was like Minho. Except. Except axolotls didn't usually have gills like fish did, their gills were exterior and fibrous and axolotls weren't beautiful like Hyunjin was. Hyunjin was beautiful.

Hyunjin wrote two words on a new piece of paper, far apart from each other. On one end,  _ good _ on the other  _ bad.  _ Hyunjin pointed at the first word and brought a hand forward. He squeezed the muscle between Minho's shoulder and neck over his shirt, before pointing at the word again. This is how Hyunjin wanted to say good. Minho reached out and repeated the motion on Hyunjin, his skin was cool and firm to the touch, with much less give than Minho's own, the muscles felt thick and tightly-bound just under his cool, durable skin. Hyunjin beamed at Minho and nodded. Something with so many deadly teeth shouldn't be cute, but he was.

"Good." Minho said out loud and with his free hand tapped the written word, while repeating the motion on Hyunjin. Hyunjin cocked his head to the smile and nodded. He tapped the word himself, squeezed Minho's trapezius, and spoke in that rumbling vibrating voice Minho was growing addicted to.

"Good."

Next Hyunjin taught Minho bad, with his impossibly long fingers slightly curled Hyunjin rubbed the back of his knuckles up and down the center of Minho's sternum. Minho couldn't help but shudder at the contact but dutifully repeated it on Hyunjin's own chest, colder than his own but not as bony. Hyunjin nodded, pleased with Minho's attempt at learning and wrote a few more words on the paper after a moment's thought. Under the previous words were three more,  _ again, more, stop _ . Stop was easiest for Minho to understand, a repeating motion of drawing one finger back and forth across the other person's neck. 'Again' was a squeeze at the wrist, but 'more' proved troublesome.

Hyunjin brought a hand around Minho's face and traced his thumb carefully from Minho's ear to right under his bottom lip. Minho repeated it, but Hyunjin frowned and repeated it again until Minho corrected his path, not a direct line but a slow curving motion. Hyunjin's face was smooth and softer than the rest of him under his thumb. ‘More’ was definitely Minho's favorite word that he learned.

Hyunjin tested Minho, performing the words on Minho randomly and waiting for Minho to perform them back and tap the correct word on the paper. When Minho got all of them right and performed them perfectly, Hyunjin smiled and squeezed Minho's shoulder again. Minho could imagine his voice rumbling in his head 'good', and couldn't help but beam at Hyunjin. Hyunjin wrote on the paper.

" _ now in the sea okay?"  _ Hyunjin was going to take Minho to the ocean. To his home. For some reason it only struck Minho then, not only was he going to see the plant but also Hyunjin moving through the water, to see Hyunjin in his element.

" _ just one thing."  _ Minho stood. Everything felt overwhelming, he was going to see Hyunjin in the water, he unbuttoned his shirt with hands shaking in anticipation and laid it on the rock. He unfastened his belt and stepped out of his herringbone trousers and folded them before putting them down, leaving him in just his undershirt and swim trunks. He took off his shirt and looked back at Hyunjin. Hyunjin's eyes were on them, and they looked different, they didn't look any bigger or smaller, they had the same wide blackness Minho was growing used to except now they looked  _ deeper _ . His eyes looked deeper and even darker. They looked with an expression Minho didn't have the prior knowledge to understand, but Minho hoped it wasn't negative.

He stepped forward, he didn't know how to ask if Hyunjin was ready and he didn't feel like writing it, so he stepped forward once more and squeezed Hyunjin's shoulder. Hyunjin smiled and squeezed back and then he dove into the water. Minho didn't dive, he hopped in feet first and gasped at the shock of the cold water, accidentally swallowing it. He rose to the surface coughing and Hyunin just watched, eyes wide.

Minho reached forward and squeezed his shoulder to reassure him that he was fine and Hyunjin finally smiled his toothy smile. Suddenly, Hyunjin pulled Minho forward in the water. Hyunjin's limbs cut through the water much faster than Minho was prepared for, and suddenly they were pulling Minho forward and turning around to sling Minho's arms around his back. Hyunjin was still in the water. As Minho took a deep breath, he squeezed Hyunjin's shoulder twice and Hyunjin plunged them into the depths.

It was like Hyunjin could somehow control his density and how fast they sank, but Minho had never heard of a creature who was capable of that. Still, the surface grew farther and farther away and Minho tightened his arms around Hyunjin's neck and broad shoulders. And then Hyunjin started kicking, using his enormous hands like paddles to pull them through the water in something that looked like breast stroke but more refined. On land, the moment Hyunjin got out of the water, his legs slimmed down, looking wider and stronger than human legs with inhuman feet, but here in the water he had fins... sort of. Smaller appendages that flared out from his calves that seemed to work much in the same way as the thin nearly transparent webbing between his fingers, helping him move through the water incredibly gracefully and efficiently. Within seconds, Hyunjin had easily traveled the length of two or three Olympic swimming pools, while hauling Minho on his back with seemingly no difficulty. They were approaching a kelp forest, one Minho had swum past before and drawn already, one they avoided when taking the boats out for observation. Hyunjin wasn't avoiding it and Minho was running out of breath.

Hyunjin swam right up to the kelp forest and came to an abrupt stop before shooting up, straight up to the surface so fast that it hurt Minho's ears. They burst through the water, Minho sucked in lungful after lungful of air and squeezed Hyunjin before he sunk them down to the floor in front of the underwater garden again.

The kelp stretched all the way from the ocean floor to the surface in thick swaying columns, dense enough only to let a few bars of dim light peak through. In most instances kelp forests weren't like real forest, there were two to three feet between each kelp plant so that even their long curling tendrils didn't overlap, this was not the case here. Dr. Kang had recently published a paper about this area, a particularly fertile stretch of land just off the northeastern coast of the continent, measuring approximately three square miles, wherein plants grew abundantly and species otherwise unrecorded so far north of the equator thrived. It was the reason Minho applied to work in his lab. The kelp forest was thick and the water was unnaturally warm. Minho curled his legs around Hyunjin's waist and appreciated nature's wonder from a new angle. And then Hyunjin swam forward, into the forest.

Leafy tendrils tickled at Minho's cheeks, shoulders, and thighs, softer than they looked but foreign all the same. Hyunjin didn't seem to mind. Hyunjin swam forward and turned, heading deeper into the forest and then he pulled to a stop and pointed down. There at the ocean floor, in between each blooming kelp stalk, was the plant.

Hundreds of them, just like the one Minho had been studying for days, except not. Not like that plant at all, because these didn't droop so much, weren't so weak, they didn't bend immediately to the mercy of the current where they grew protected by the kelp. Minho dismounted Hyunjin's back to swim closer. Unlike the plant Minho had spent days drawing, there were no spots, the leaves were a bright green closer to the stem of the leaf and strangely a darker green on the outside. Minho had never seen anything like it. Hyunjin swam closer and Minho followed until he could see more of the base of the plant and Minho gasped. The roots were partially exposed and winding with the roots of all the other plants until they formed almost a single organism!

Unfortunately, Minho's amazement got the better of him and when he gasped he swallowed a large mouthful of seawater that had him choking and gasping. He tried to get to the surface but he didn't know which way was up, the light was so dim it felt like it was coming everywhere, through every gap in the leaves. He tried to kick up, away from the ocean floor, but it felt so far away and every part of him felt so heavy. All he knew was the floor and him and Hyunjin.  _ Hyunjin! _

Hyunjin was looking at Minho, confused. Quickly, Minho reached forward and drew his fingers across Hyunjin's smooth neck repeatedly. Hyunjin's eyes sunk. Hyunjin grasped Minho's hand and rocketed to the surface, not pausing to reposition Minho, dragging Minho's full weight behind him to breach the surface. Minho's vision was darkening, he could feel his surroundings slipping away, but Hyunjin's grip on his wrist was unwavering. Hyunjin's fingers were long and cool, and tight around him, so he focused on that. His world became the tight circle of Hyunjin on his wrist.

Hyunjin exploded through the waves and hauled Minho with him. Minho was vaguely aware of Hyunjin hauling him close and tipping him slightly over his shoulder, the way someone might burp a baby, but Minho didn't care. He was too busy coughing up half the ocean. Minho lost everything he swallowed down there and his breakfast as Hyunjin held him and dragged cool hands down Minho's side, in a way that both comforted him and gave him the shivers.

Minho stopped dry heaving and instead heaved breaths into his aching lungs, shuddering, he felt ridiculous. He crawled down from where Hyunjin perched him and instead curled with his arms around Hyunjin's neck and his face pressed into the cool skin where Hyunjin's pulse would be if he were human. If he had one, Minho couldn't detect it.

Hyunjin pivoted them around and floated on his back with his legs propelling them towards their destination. Like this, his chest acted as a raft for Minho to hold onto and rest his head against, so he didn't have to submerge underwater yet. Minho was grateful. He felt so stupid. He had been swimming his whole life, he was an aquatic biologist, for crying out loud, the ocean was supposed to be his second home, a landscape he knew. But everything about the world Hyunjin showed him felt unfamiliar, with Hyunjin everything felt new. It was almost like, because Hyunjin could navigate the underwater environment seamlessly, because Hyunjin made breathing underwater look so easy, Minho's body had wanted to copy him. He felt like an idiot, but Hyunjin's arms felt reassuring around him. The worry in his face when Minho had been struggling, the way he had leapt into action to help, that too had been reassuring.

Minho looked up from Hyunjin's chest; he barely recognized his surroundings. Hyunjin wasn't bringing them directly back to the rock, but Minho didn't find himself afraid of the idea. Instead, he found himself excited and curious at the possibility of seeing a new part of his world. Hyunjin shifted Minho around, positioning him on his back again so he could move more efficiently but still, he didn't go completely underwater. Like this, Minho could see the waves as they moved, the surface of the water. He was amazed at the natural speed Hyunjin possessed. Each of his strokes easily covered the distance of six or seven of Minho's own. He brought them around one of the northern cliffs’ points, towards an inlet Minho had passed multiple times. Hyunjin stopped along the way; a quarter of the way to the shore, there was a small outcropping of rock. Hyunjin ducked behind it, there was a sliver of an opening in the wall. A tiny gap with a bare few inches of air.

Minho reached a finger out around Hyunjin's head to touch the gap, but squeaked when Hyunjin piloted them forward towards it. Minho grabbed on tight to his shoulders, unconsciously repeating 'good good good' until he remembered, and just held on. Minho braced himself for hard rock and a lack of oxygen, but he was not prepared for what came next.

Hyunjin briefly ducked underwater, bringing them through the gap for a few long moments before he popped out of the water on the other side of the entrance. The ceiling receded away into a high dome further into the underwater cave, with plenty of room for Minho to breathe, to jump, even. Spiderwebs and water plants decorated the walls and ceilings like gossamer and doilies; life, even here. Hyunjin moved forward until they reached the end of the cave, where the water got shallower and gave way to the rock wall.

Hyunjin stopped and deposited Minho in the shallows, lifting and lowering him like when he had saved Minho from falling off the boulder. Minho thought to himself that he might be letting Hyunjin get away with a little too much manhandling. That, by letting him think it's okay to just pick Minho up and down like a ragdoll, he might be teaching him very bad manners, but so far it had been very helpful. And Minho liked it. Hyunjin tapped Minho's knees repeatedly - a word Minho hadn't learned yet. Hyunjin made a noise, almost like a huff, but a little deeper almost like? A tiger chuff? Minho decided to stop trying to dissect Hyunjin into pieces he could understand; instead, he wanted to just experience Hyunjin as he was.

Hyunjin tapped Minho's knees again and then did the motions for stop and good repeatedly, until understanding dawned on Minho.

"Wait! You want me to wait, to stay!" Hyunjin didn't understand but it was okay, because Minho felt like  _ he _ finally did. He pointed at himself, tapped his knees twice and pointed at the back cave wall. Hyunjin smiled and nodded. Hyunjin's cool, smooth thumb traced from the shell of Minho's ear down to his lips and then squeezed his shoulder. The grammar was unusual, but Minho felt the message loud and clear, "very good.” He blushed and smiled back. And then Hyunjin swam away, out of the cave.

Without Hyunjin there, the rest of the world rushed back. He had almost died because of his own stupidity. If Hyunjin hadn't been there - Minho didn't want to think about if Hyunjin hadn't been there, with his strength and speed and compassion for Minho. Minho wondered if he was the first human Hyunjin had helped.

Without Hyunjin there to distract him, Minho inspected the cave further. The water was slightly cooler than the water outside without any direct rays of sunlight. The light at the back of the cave was dim, but with the sun still more east than west in the sky, enough light snuck in for Minho to see.

He ran his hands over the rocky walls like he would when walking past a brick building in the city, feeling the rough texture on his palm. There were marks, salt-encrusted lines, indicating a drop in water levels over the years, and a darker line, close to where the water reached, that Minho imagined must be the high tide level. He would have had no hope of finding the cave at high tide, breathing wouldn't be as easy, at least not at the mouth of the cave. Minho wondered how Hyunjin had found this place, if his family knew about it. Minho didn't want to think too much about Hyunjin's family, the fear on Hyunjin's face after Minho first saw him told him enough. Minho wasn't supposed to know about Hyunjin, and he didn't want to push it; he was grateful to know him at all.

Hyunjin returned after several long minutes. Minho watched him hold something above his head. He balanced it carefully through the mouth of the cave so it never touched the water. As he got closer, Minho recognized what it was. His notebook and pencil from the rock! Hyunjin had brought them back carefully so none of the pages got wet and they could talk. Hyunjin smiled, bright deep eyes and too many teeth.

"Hello, Minho." That same rumbly voice, like sound echoing out of a quarry.

"Hello, Hyunjin! Thank you!" Hyunjin handed the book and pencil to Minho, and Minho poked his knees out of the water to place the book on them and get to work. First, Minho wrote down his notes about the plant. As Hyunjin watched, he tried to catalog every part of them. First, the way they hid in kelp gardens to guard themselves from the harsh rays of the sun and the currents, like gale-force winds. Next, he wrote about the way they worked together, and off to the side scrawled a few quick hypotheses about root systems and shared nutrients - did they function like trees in a forest or different? Finally, Minho got to the leaves and their unique coloring and distinct lack of spots, what he could almost certainly call sun bleaching at this point. The plant  _ needed _ the kelp gardens and this particularly lush area of the ocean in order to thrive. It needed to work together with its environment in order to survive. It needed help. Minho looked at Hyunjin, who looked up from the page when he saw Minho's hand paused in its writing.

"Thank you, Hyunjin." It wasn't enough. Minho reached his hand forward and stretched his thumb to trace down from his hair to just under his plush bottom lip, and repeated himself. "Thank you."

Hyunjin smiled. Once again, Minho thought to himself, it wasn't enough, but before he could do anything else, Hyunjin’s careful, clumsy hands took the pencil from Minho and turned the page of the notebook.

" _ why thank you?" _

Why thank you? What  _ didn't _ he have to be thankful to Hyunjin for? Minho took the pencil back.

_ "For everything. For showing me the plant, for saving me when I choked, for taking me to this place. For talking to me, and not running away. For your kindness." _

Hyunjin took a moment to read it, but when he did, he smiled. He carefully plucked the pencil from Minho's hand with his long fingers, hesitating above the page before he finally wrote.

" _ I am very thank you too. There is a reason I have not taught you how to say thank you yet. It is very special to say thank you with touch, would you like to learn?" _

Minho shivered, god, the things Hyunjin wrote made him feel some type of way, but it was ridiculous, Hyunjin wouldn't know that what he was saying would sound so suggestive to Minho. Minho didn't hesitate to respond.

" _ Yes of course!" _

Again, Hyunjin paused before writing. " _ It is a very special conversation between people. It is like dance or,"  _ his hand paused searching for the word,  _ "ritual. Two or more can merge in thanks. It is special. I wish I knew other word, but it is special. Would you like to say thanks with me, Minho? _ "

Minho blushed. Maybe Hyunjin was being suggestive. Minho would feel like a real idiot if he wasn't, but it  _ felt  _ suggestive. Did Minho want that with Hyunjin? Whatever it might mean? With kind, sweet, beautiful Hyunjin? He might never know this again. Hyunjin was. Hyunjin was. Hyunjin was.

" _ Yes please."  _ Hyunjin smiled, Minho smiled back. Hyunjin carefully took the notebook and pencil from Minho's knees and placed them on a ledge in the wall that was just big enough to hold them. Minho scooted forward in the water, where the floor was a little flatter and the waterline flirted with the waist of his bathing suit. Hyunjin crawled back behind Minho and pulled at Minho's hips until he settled back against his firm chest again. He didn't feel very stupid.

Hyunjin's long fingers stroked along Minho's side and forward to ghost down his stomach, his touch tantalizingly light, in a way that made Minho's breathing pick up. His hand switched to feeling up and down Minho's legs and his inner thighs, gently pressing them apart to pet down the hair there. His hands looked amazing against his skin. Minho was pale, especially on his legs which were so frequently covered, but Hyunjin's hands looked paler, his skin grayer and with almost a slightly green tint when compared to the flesh of Minho's thighs. And his hands looked gigantic.

It was always there. Minho was never  _ not _ aware of the size of Hyunjin's hands, but here on his skin, where they were easily three quarters the length of Minho's thigh, it was shocking. Minho had the absurd thought that if Hyunjin wanted to spend more time on land, he could be a very skilled pianist. He almost wanted to laugh and then Hyunjin's long tongue was licking long stripes on the back of his neck and that laugh turned into a moan.

Hyunjin's tongue was the warmest part of him. It was warm and soft, and slick, slicker than a human tongue. It glided along easily, no bumps or texture besides warm, silky soft wetness that had Minho's body responding in turn. Hyunjin's hands seemed fascinated by that too, as he quickly turned their slow teasing touches to the bulge in Minho's swim trunks. He gasped, thankfully this time he was above water.

Hyunjin’s fingers were frustrating, soft and teasing, whispers of more movement. When Hyunjin did apply more pressure to Minho's cock it was such a relief that Minho moaned loudly in the quiet space. Hyunjin's hand stilled and Minho grabbed his wrist, lightning-fast, and squeezed it repeatedly, 'again again again'. Hyunjin chuffed behind him, which might have been him laughing at Minho, but his hand stroked him again, so Minho didn't mind.

Hyunjin's tongue was relentlessly licking every inch of the back and sides of Minho's neck, dragging just the tip of his sharp teeth across the thin skin of his collar bone until Minho was stuck between arching into his mouth or his hands. Minho leaned back against Hyunjin. He tried to feel him even closer, and when he turned his head, Hyunjin’s mouth found his, and they were kissing. Why hadn't Minho thought to do this earlier?

Hyunjin's magic tongue felt even better in his mouth, exploring it. Minho wondered if Hyunjin was also feeling every way that they were different from each other, a smooth tongue on his dull teeth, and every way they were similar, a placating lick to the ridges of his mouth. 

Long fingers toyed with the leg holes of Minho's swim trunks. Hyunjin made a shocked little noise when they snapped back to Minho's skin. Minho laughed a little into Hyunjin's mouth before pulling back. He wondered if Hyunjin realized Minho's swim trunks weren't a part of him. Minho scooted forward just enough to slide them off, before scooting back to rest against Hyunjin’s chest once more.

Hyunjin made another shocked sound, this one sounded more pleased or excited than confused. Immediately, his hands found Minho's shoulders squeezing, 'good, good, good' Minho couldn't help but laugh and kiss him again. While they kissed, Hyunjin made sure to explore all of Minho's now-exposed skin with his hands until Minho was shaking with it. The water on his bare skin, Hyunjin's strong hands dragging across him. It was all so much, Minho felt extra sensitive to it. Finally, long fingers closed around Minho's cock and he whimpered into Hyunjin's mouth, the feeling of Hyunjin stroking him, toying with the head of his cock, rubbing his thumb in circles around Minho's slit, it was all so overwhelming.

Hyunjin pulled back and Minho took the opportunity to rest his forehead against Hyunjin's chin and catch his breath. He opened his eyes just in time to watch Hyunjin raise his hand from Minho's cock to his lips and lick up a bead of Minho's precome for a taste.

"Jesus Mary and Joseph," Minho cursed. Hyunjin cocked his head, confused, and pulled out his glistening fingers smiling. Suddenly, he brought the same fingers towards Minho and tapped them against Minho's lips. Minho opened his mouth without thinking and suddenly he was sucking on two of Hyunjin’s long, cool fingers. He couldn't fit all of them in his mouth, but his nails had already accidentally teased at Minho's gag reflex as he swallowed and sucked on Hyunjin's digits. They tasted like Hyunjin's mouth, like saltwater and something warm, and underneath that, the musk of his own arousal. Minho moaned around the fingers.

Hyunjin's other hands worked over Minho's erection, twisting and pulling in a way that  was borderline painful. It was nothing like the way Minho touched himself and for that reason it was incredible. A sharp nail trailed down the underside of his cock, an unspoken threat that had Minho crying out just as Minho felt something warm and wet and  _ thick _ slap against his lower back. Minho moved back against it unconsciously. It was warm, just like Hyunjin's tongue, and soft like his tongue, too, but firmer and it moved with  _ intention _ against Minho's body. Jesus Mary and Joseph that was Hyunjin's...

Minho  _ whined _ .

It snaked lower, past the small of Minho’s back to the top of his crack and pushed between his cheeks, so thick, a deliciously insistent pleasure that had Minho melting. It had been so long since he - and certainly never like this - so thrilling, so exciting, with the water all around him something warm and strong and unknowable right behind him full of surprises. Soon, Minho might be full too. Hyunjin’s member pressed against Minho’s hole. Beyond the delicious pressure Minho, registered two things - one, it wasn’t completely smooth like Hyunjin’s tongue, it had almost rings of muscle under the skin that pulsed against Minho’s skin. Two, it was slick, dripping in something almost oily and thick that left a trail all over Minho’s ass and felt almost glycerin. It smelled like salt and rain. Hyunjin moved against him again and Minho couldn’t resist arching and curving his body to reach Hyunjin’s face and practically beg with a shaking finger, a thumb on his cheek, ‘more.’

Hyunjin’s reaction was immediate. One giant hand settled on his waist, and the other cradled his head at the base of his skull. Suddenly Minho was hefted into the air so Hyunjin could spin him around and all but crash his back into the rocky floor near the end of the cave. Minho gasped at the rough contact of his back to the ground, as the water splashed up and onto his sensitive nipples. Hyunjin’s hand was the only thing that protected Minho’s head from bouncing on the rock. There would be bruises tomorrow; Minho couldn't wait. He knew Hyunjin hadn't meant to hurt him, his own skin was stronger and his own back was more muscled; he wasn't used to having to be gentle, and Minho didn't want him to be. He wanted the full experience.

Minho pulled Hyunjin down by his jaw to lick into his mouth again. It was even better like this, when he didn't have to crane his neck awkwardly or arch his back for access, when he could just focus on the wet warmth of Hyunjin's mouth, so different from the rest of him. The thick heat was back at Minho's entrance, and Minho remembered, he pulled back from Hyunjin's mouth to look down and gasped again.

Emerging from the slit in between Hyunjin's legs was a long thick appendage, roughly the shape of a penis but with ridges and dips that no penis had, and a flexible, pulsating movement that Minho had never seen before. And it was red. Well, it wasn't entirely red, it was the same white-grey mixture the rest of Hyunjin’s skin was at its base, but as his eyes traced the whole enormous length, the gray gave way to pink, then to a deep, rich red like his tongue at its tip. It was so thick that it filled Minho with anxiety, there was no way he could fit that inside of him, he reached his own small hand forward to feel it, and then Hyunjin did something amazing.

As Minho's hand got closer, Hyunjin's length  _ unwound _ into three distinct tentacle-like appendages connected together by strings of the same glycerin-like slickness Minho had felt against his skin. They moved individually, and when Minho finally moved his hand forward once more, they swirled around to caress and wind around him with a warm, firm, pressure. They moved as an undulating wave of pleasure, around his wrist, in between each finger, across his palm, it was overwhelming. Minho couldn't help but whine. Hyunjin paused in his movements, Minho blindly reached his free hand to his shoulder to confirm he was ‘good good good’.

Minho took his hand back and Hyunjin's tentacles immediately went to work. Two swirled around Minho's cock in a way that immediately had him squirming and moaning. One snaked down and probed at Minho's entrance once more. The pleasure was overwhelming. The undulating, pulsating pressure around Minho's cock was more satisfying than any hand or mouth or hole Minho had experienced, the way the tentacles worked together to surround him and engulf him - it was unimaginable. It was then, when he was distracted by the onslaught of sensation, that Hyunjin finally pressed into him. His tentacle was thin enough at the tip with enough of its own lubricant that Minho didn't need to be stretched by fingers. The tip wriggled inside, resting just past his rim, as Minho whined and pressed his head back into Hyunjin's enormous palm, thrusting up into the caress of Hyunjin's tentacles. Minho brought his hand, still dripping in Hyunjin's wetness to Hyunjins face, 'more more more'.

Hyunjin pressed in further, thicker and thicker as he went along. Minho felt each ridge of Hyunjin inside him, filling him up and rubbing along every inch of Minho's channel. Hyunjin paused when he was fully sheathed, his only movement the steady milking of Minho's cock. Minho breathed through the strain, until all he could feel were waves of nonstop bliss. And then Hyunjin started to move inside him.

Without even moving his hips, the appendage started to shift inside Minho, turning and swiveling against his walls. Undulating until it surged just right around his prostate, controlled pressure on every side of Minho's most sensitive spot that had him clamping both of his hands on Hyunjin's shoulders. Minho chanted it out loud as he squeezed it into Hyunjin.

"Good, good, good,"Hyunjin continued like that until Minho felt the crest of his pleasure growing inside him. Minho wondered if Hyunjin's tentacles felt good, the same way dicks did. He tested this by clenching around Hyunjin tightly, Hyunjin’s reactive sound and hand clutching his shoulder was answer enough. And then, Hyunjin brought the hand to his face and shoulder again in a question, 'more please?'

Minho didn't quite know what he meant, but he nodded anyway, it was already so incredible, anything more sounded like heaven. His breath was coming fast; he knew he was close. The end surged up so much faster when the second one of Hyunjin's members snaked from Minho's cock to probe at Minho's already stretched entrance. Minho grabbed at Hyunjin's shoulders once before he slipped his hand up into his coarse hair to pull him down and crash their lips together. Warring waves.

Minho knew that his climax was approaching, he wanted to reach it while kissing Hyunjin's mouth, feeling Hyunjin's tongue breach his lips in time with his second tentacle. It entered carefully, each ridge of muscle pushing past slowly, stretching him farther in small bursts. Hyunjin's second member wound around the first that was already inside him until they twisted together like a throbbing vortex, tearing Minho apart from the inside out. Hyunjin pulled out slightly and slammed back in, both of his slick appendages writhing around Minho's prostate until he couldn't take it anymore.

Minho came with a shout that echoed brashly in the cave, pleasure crashing over him, swallowing him whole until he was drowning in it, his vision gone, executive function unresponsive, all sensation lost, except for the white-hot bliss thrumming inside of him. He came back to himself slowly, the tide receding from the shore. Hyunjin's tentacle was still around his cock, his own cum mixed with Hyunjin's clear excretion on the pink flesh of his shaft.

Minho reached down between him and pushed Hyunjin off his over-sensitive cock with a whine, but grabbed Hyunjin's hips with a bigger whine when he tried to pull out. Minho was sensitive and raw, but Hyunjin still felt good and big and warm inside him. He needed to find out if Hyunjin could cum. Minho shivered at the thought. Of being flooded with Hyunjin's cum. Hyunjin pushed forward and shuddered; Minho wondered if he was getting close. Minho took a deep breath and kissed Hyunjin again. He bit down on Hyunjin's lip and clamped down, feeling Hyunjin's strong arms shudder around him, feeling him quiver inside of Minho. Minho repeated it again, moving on to suck on Hyunjin's smooth tongue.

Hyunjin's third appendage pressed a blunt ridge directly on Minho's taint, unexpectedly stimulating his prostate. It made Minho writhe, clamping down on Hyunjin unintentionally and accidentally biting his tongue. Minho thought to apologize but Hyunjin didn't seem pained. No, Hyunjin pushed farther into Minho and paused. Minho felt it, the moment Hyunjin snapped and was hit by pleasure, wave after wave of it releasing into Minho. More and more. So much. Almost...

Minho pushed at Hyunjin's hip, it was too much, he pulled out and it pulsed out onto Minho's stomach and chest instead, streams of fragrantless, transparent pink cum washing over him. When Hyunjin finished, he tugged at Minho's boneless arms, and Minho let himself be tugged into his embrace, letting Hyunjin pilot them to deeper waters to wash them off.

Minho settled into his favorite spot, against Hyunjin's neck, as Hyunjin spun in slow circles in the water. It was almost like they were dancing in the underwater cave. Minho reached out his hand to Hyunjin's, almost like a waltz, but squeezed his wrist. 'Again?'

Hyunjin shook with silent laughter and smiled at Minho, but he squeezed Minho's wrist.

Again.

Minho hoped there were infinite 'agains' in his future.

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW!! You made it, I made it, we all made it. Thank you so much for reading, if you enjoyed consider leaving a Kudos! 
> 
> a href="https://moreblminfo.carrd.co" rel="nofollow">this carrd has a lot of great info regarding BLM
> 
> You can find a post explaining why and how im doing theres requests [here](https://twitter.com/translixie/status/1267220505888784384)
> 
> Heres my info:  
> [My NSFW (minors dni)](https://twitter.com/translixie)  
>    
> [CC for yelling](https://curiouscat.me/translixie)
> 
> And now what im sure you've been waiting all this time for, an info dump about this fic:  
> Minho's job is largely based off of Rachel Carson, an aquatic biologist at woods hole lab (later woods hole institute) at the time, Rachel Carson is an awesome person to check out if you have time. She was an aquatic biologist who wrote very lyrically about the sea and made the sea accessible to so many who didn't have the prior knowledge of a scientist, and she, in her later years was an awesome activist for ocean conservation.  
> I learned more than I ever wanted to about fish for this but I am unfortunately not an aquatic biologist so I'm very sorry if anything was glaringly wrong.  
> It was important to me in this fic that Minho not be trying to "civilize" Hyunjin or make him act more human bc I'm aware of the history of mermaid/alien first encounter fiction coming across very colonizer-esq, I sincerly apologize if you feel this fic missed the mark. I think in writing first encounter it's on the job of the author to be aware of the dangers and the history (like James Cameron's avatar being very white savior-y), and so I tried to treat this fic with care. This is about Minho learning and loving something new, so I hope it came across that way.  
> On a personal note: June has been insane for me. I have uploaded 6 fics now this month (a new record for me), grieved the loss of a family member, and tomorrow I'm going to move again. After this I have one more donation request and then it's back to our regularly scheduled programming! Thank you again!


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